TransCanada Corp said on Monday it aims to build the southern leg of its $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline first, skirting a full-blown federal review and heightening competition to move crude out of the glutted Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub.
REUTERS

Environmental groups blasted TransCanada Corporporation (USA) (NYSE:TRP), the company that proposes to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, over their new ad campaign for the project saying the Canadian company does not have U.S. interests in mind.

“TransCanada’s MO [mode of operation] is to take what would be something that would make them lots of money and shove it down everybody else’s throat, by telling them what a great deal it is for us,” Eddie Scher, communication strategist for the Sierra Club, said in an interview Tuesday in response to a new ad campaign by TransCanada.

The Canadian energy giant announced the launch of the ad campaign via Twitter midday Tuesday saying that their ads are aimed at providing “important facts about how the Keystone XL pipeline project is in the national interest of the United States,” the website's blog stated.

"I'm not sure why TransCanada thinks Americans will trust a Canadian oil company to tell them what's in the best interests of the United States,” Ross Hammond, senior campaigner for Friends of the Earth, a major environmental group, said in an statement to IBTimes.

In the coming weeks TransCanada will advertise through social media, national TV, radio and newspapers, using the tagline, “The Keystone Pipeline is a critical piece of a secure energy picture for America. Let’s get it done.”

“Americans have had a lot of experience being lied to by big oil companies -- we'll be able to see through this campaign as well," Hammond said.

In response to the energy company’s new tagline Hammond’s only response was, “Oh dear.”